


silver-sharp, deathly pale

by LadySpearWife



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Character Study, Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Politics, Quenya, Rule 63, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27383248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySpearWife/pseuds/LadySpearWife
Summary: Outside the glittering palaces of Tirion upon Túna, away from discussion of heirlooms and crowns and the Valar’s touch, there’s this woman –She’s called Mistenis and Nahtinde. One day, however, she’ll be Ectheleth.Balrog-slayer. Hero. Legend.In this day, she plays the flute in a tavern tucked far away from the eyes of scheming princes;
Relationships: Argon | Arakáno/Ecthelion of the Fountain, Ecthelion of the Fountain/Glorfindel
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	silver-sharp, deathly pale

**Author's Note:**

> this is absolutely a self indulgent au that i expect no one else to read. but if you are here, thank you and see you down there
> 
> notes on names and who is who on the end

Outside the glittering palaces of Tirion upon Túna, away from discussion of heirlooms and crowns and the Valar’s touch, there’s this woman –

(Girl, still.)

She’s called Mistenis and Nahtinde. One day, however, she’ll be Ectheleth.

Balrog-slayer. Hero. _Legend_.

On this day, she plays the flute in a tavern tucked far away from the eyes of scheming princes until her lungs burn and tries to not mind the constant _drip-drip-drip_ of rain on her back from the infiltration, there and going unfixed for months.

Mistenis – for why should a maid of Valinor be called _slayer_? – rolls her eyes at the drunk patrons, keeps playing, dreams of playing at glittering halls for endless crowds.

She dreams of many improbable, petty victories, these days.

There are a group of drunkards, tailors or something of the sort, discussing whether Fëanáro or Nolofinwë ought to inherit the throne. Mistenis has to play louder to not let them drown her out. The barkeep complains of her weak music terribly, awfully, and constantly. _Let the princes kill each other_ , she thinks, vicious.

Back wet, lungs burning, morose.

What can a girl save for dreaming, hoping, _waiting_?

(Here’s the catch on Mistenis:

She went to a disgraced priestess of Vairë once, half drunk and giggling with Sírien and Rátisse, feeling like a daring scoundrel for it. The woman took a look at her, tapped her long nails on a table covered with a cloth dizzying to watch, and smile an unpleasant smile. Called her Nahtinde, her strange and proud mother-name.

Said she’d die drowned in a strange land and they’d whisper of her forever in awe. She’d be curse on the corrupted. Mistenis had left appropriately disturbed.

But wistful for the future to come –

Doesn’t every girl want to be like Nardawë who defeated wolves and beasts to bring the Noldor to Aman? Doesn’t every girl dream of being hailed a hero?)

There’re tales and ballads and mourning songs for the Trees.

Canafinwë Macalaurë begins his Noldolantë with a hissing, delirious, panicked fear of the sudden darkness. While Mistenis tends to find him morose, it’s an appropriate description of the dread that fell on them as their world crumbled.

She’s afraid, Mistenis.

Huddling in the corners of the market, stunned and horrified and –

_What if there’s something in the dark?_

Yes, she’s afraid.

She can’t keep her breathing quiet. It fogs once it leaves her mouth and scratches against her throat, painful and shallow and dry. There’s a boy clinging at her arm, bone-shattering grip. The harpist in a duet with her. He’s crying. They’re all crying in the dark.

The wind hisses with poison and a cruel laugh.

Mistenis has never bent deprived of light, and a dread in her bones wails.

The boy still cries, and the market trembles in dread, paralyzed, waiting to see if a blessed soul will save them. Mistenis picks her flute, blood pounding in her ears.

Orcs between the Falas and the Ered Luin will learn to fear this song.

What else can a musician do? She pleads to no one but herself – _brave, brave, brave, I must be brave if no one else will_. It’s not a Song of Power, won’t be for centuries, and yet it rings odd and loud and evokes the image of a girl before an angry river.

Evokes the image of her leaping into it anyway and walking out of it, half-fish.

They won’t remember this, none save for Mistenis herself.

But when the Trees fell and the great princes of the Noldor went to scream at Valar themselves, the Noldor huddled at Tirion’s silver-pale market to hear a flutist play.

And thus, they were not broken, when the princes returned.

Not cowered.

They lit lamps, not needed for centuries upon centuries.

And muttered among themselves – _yes, be brave, be brave, be brave_.

Dawn will come.

Mistenis has blood in her mouth from a craft she hadn’t mastered yet. The frightened harpist boy strums a tune when she goes quiet, and more come. A storyteller to tell tales of bravery in the dark of Endor before the march to this dead light.

The princes plot and fight, and they’ll come to make passionate speeches.

Call forth their people to either madness or extreme caution.

Mistenis sits on the pale stones and looks at the multitude of stars shining on this city for the first since its birth. She had never gone to the path of Calacirya before.

Never seen the stars.

She waits, that girl.

Seeing spiders lurk in the dark and playing when silence festers.

The first taste of heroism.

Mistenis goes by Nahtinde in Helcaraxë.

(No, no, that’s not a proper start – _storytelling_ is an art.)

 _You ungrateful, heinous bitch_ , Mistenis’ mother screams when she says she’ll march with Nolofinwë and leave Aman. A vase is thrown in her direction, among other precious pottery. All the neighborhood listens as Olowë Arindil curse at her daughter.

For Olowë Arindil buried seventeen loved ones in the bloody, cruel way to Aman.

How could her daughter throw her sacrifices away?

And how could she not see Melkor would come again and again? The Valar would not do anything. He’d fester like an infected wound in the dark corners of the world.

Marr the world once more.

No, Mistenis cannot stay in Aman, and perhaps she’s ungrateful and heinous.

Or she’s brave.

Her father cries. Calls her Doomed, calls her dead, calls her his sweet child.

_What good will a musician do in a war?_

What good, indeed.

So, Mistenis hurls back insults she doesn’t regret at her mother, silver-tongued as always. And she scoffs at her father. Packs her belongings. Kisses her little brothers on their foreheads and tells them to be good even when they turn away.

No one forgives the Exiles.

And to Nolofinwë she goes regardless of their disgust.

Their grief.

They send her to princess Aracánë’s host.

And _that_ is a good beginning as any.

There’re not many tales about princess Aracánë –because she barely managed to set foot in Beleriand and her family outshone her death at Lammoth. Mistenis knows this as unfair. On the series of meetings that change her life, this is the most important.

They’re the last of the last, behind even the bulk of Arafinwë’s languid march.

The Host of the Twice-Turned, is the joke among them.

Fëanáro leads with the avid, senseless fervor they expect from him – nothing short of insanity, and his children do not stray from such a convincing passion. Nolofinwë is adored, iron-willed and solid and unflinching. But Turucáno is a cautious leader, and this is not the time for caution, and most in Arafinwë’s numbers drag their feet.

The ones not filled by fervor falter, hesitate, abandon their journey.

When they turn to back march back, however, it’s the host of princess Aracánë they find. They’ll not tell stories of her, but she burns and burns and burns.

And people join them once again, convinced by her relentless drive.

Think twice about leaving.

Mistenis _adores_ her.

She takes to playing the flute in their idle time, bravery at her lips when she starts to sing. They sing with her, dance to her music. Defiant, defiant, defiant. Mistenis makes a name for herself for an art that can make a hero out of a sniveling, pitiful coward.

“What’s your name?” Princess Aracánë asks, looking at her with night-bright eyes. Tall and imperious, skilled spear-woman. “I’ve heard of you in my ranks.”

Mistenis stands straight.

Her name is at her lips when she retreats, choses another path. “Nahtinde.”

Princess Aracánë smiles – unkind for sure, and also satisfied. “Join me tonight, then. I think a few of my captains have forgotten what we’re doing here.”

They go arm in arm.

Mis- Nahtinde plays a ballad of a lone king facing darkness itself with a valiant cry, a famous sword. Plays a ballad of injustice and defiance. They stare, they whisper, and at the end of it they clap and roar. _King Finwë’s Glory_ , and it’s – _remarkable_.

Princess Aracánë keeps her in her retinue.

They become friends.

Friends enough to stand near each other when Alqualondë burns in its sacking, horrified and transfixed by the flames tearing the dark horizon in two.

“Go to sleep, Nahtinde, you’ll need the rest,” Aracánë commands.

She cannot.

But the horde of the regretful start tricking by, and she needs to play.

And play and play and play.

What does she think of this?

She thinks of the complacent Teleri in the face of darkness and the innocent Teleri in the faces of Fëanáro’s ambition and the hunger of swords and flames as they consume it all. Uncaring of anything but death. Námo proclaims Doom for them all.

Nahtinde isn't afraid.

But the Valar will not move unless it’s to condemn them.

(Damned if you do, damned if don’t – whole damnation is watching you.)

Darkness gathers across the ocean. How can she falter?

How much of it will wash over them in turn, though?

In the end, it’s Nolofinwë who comes to them. Burning ice-cold, a lightning storm, named King. The stories will speak of the burning ships. However, let it not be said he’s not a skilled politician – they are furious, they are horrified, they are disgusted.

He’s king from the First Kinslaying to his charge at Morgoth.

Don’t be fooled by honor.

As for Nahtinde –

She’s busy trying to salvage some spirit from their horrified host and from the ones marching back. _Thrice cursed weakling_ , she wants to spit at Arafinwë.

He leads a crowd both bigger and smaller than the one he left with.

And the ones who don’t give up march under his children rather than himself, unsullied by the blood of his wife’s people and still a disgrace in Aman. Nahtinde would understand his continuous hesitation, if people weren’t yet to find his father’s body from the tarnished, singed, shattered ruins of Formenos. Coward, coward, coward.

She charms an odd bunch.

Aracánë convinces others.

Arafinwë proclaims them all bloodthirsty, insane fools and returns to Tirion.

(A King as well.

Aren’t there enough rulers?)

In this hell of idleness, looking to the horizon and waiting for the ships to return, Nahtinde meets Laurefindelë and Tuilindië – or rather, they come with ceremonial armor still stained and battered from the sack. Host of Findecáno, and Kinslayers as well.

“Do you have no shame in pushing people to remain in madness after _that_?” Laurefindelë shouts at her, interrupts her music. He’s so authoritative, isn’t he?

Tuilindië shakes her head.

At _Nahtinde_.

“I’ll never touch my bow again, not after corrupting the craft.”

And Nahtinde – you see, she’s cynical but always relentless. She has no patience for no regret, these days. And less known, she hates being interrupted.

Especially by soft-hearted, pious, half Vanyar _assholes_.

“Do you have no shame in allowing the Dark Lord to roam free after attacking our homes? Will you have shame when he comes again, this time after destroying Endor and stronger than ever? I name you coward and betrayer, then.”

And Nahtinde turns to Tuilindië.

Purses her lips – yes, furious; yes, bright; yes, armed for battle.

“Your craft has always been killing, don’t be foolish. Save it for the beasts that await for us in the other side of the sea, if you so desperately wish for it be righteous.”

Nahtinde’s tongue will gain her many enemies.

They blink, horrified. His parents are childhood friends of Nolofinwë, and her family was in the good graces of Finwë Noldóran himself. Nahtinde doesn’t think a common-born singer ever talked to them without at least one honorific and three bows.

And they are more disquieted by her words than by herself – a victory.

She’ll gain many enemies with this famed sharpness.

Not them.

And Helcaraxë –

Fëanáro betrays them, and the flames dance damning and weak and undeniable on the distant horizon. Nolofinwë speaks of the Griding Ice, and for once Nahtinde falters.

_What will be of us?_

**Author's Note:**

> Ecthelion - for now, Mistenis (fine rain + female suffix nis) Nahtinde (to slay + female doer suffix inde)  
> Duilin - Tuilindo (quenya) to Tuilindië (female version)  
> Aracánë - Aracáno aka Argon  
> quenya is complicated and trying to find names for female versions of characters whose names dont have an easy meaning is my particular nightmare
> 
> but well i hope you liked this weird thing i wrote! i'm giving my first child to everyone who leaves a comment not even kidding man


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